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[PATV] Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 6, Ep. 4: Raising the Dead
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This is the definition of a game you are using: activity engaged in for diversion or amusement
Titanium Dragon and others, including most who write about game design, are arguing that such a definition is meaningless in the context of game design and use a definition that narrows the scope to something meaningful in the context of the discussion. What good is it to discuss game design using a definition for games that includes watching television, reading books, and day dreaming? What your definition of a game?
The principle of game design is actually quite simple and VERY MUCH an element of the lottery. It is not just psychological. It is also mathematically designed so that over time dumb luck will pay out half the money raised in prizes allowing the house, in this case the government, to pocket the other half. On the streets this is called...
Wait for it...
...a "numbers GAME".
There's the pesky word again.
I will give you this much... the entire weight of human history stands against you, and yet you keep doubling down. It's not going to be pretty when you finally fall off that high horse of yours.
That's the problem. Challenge isn't required for a game. There isn't a "challenge" in rolling dice and having it come up with favorable results. People still roll the dice for the principle aim of getting a favorable result, even if it requires no intellectual challenge or particular skill.
Quit making up arbitrary exclusions. You're beginning to remind me of Ebert clutching at straws trying to reason out why games can't be art. He's arguing for the entirely arbitrary reason that you are audience to movies but not games. You just happen to be arguing for the opposite reason so that you can exclude certain games as not actually being games.
He says: Games are more interactive than movies. Movies are not interactive at all! (False!)
You say: Some games are not interactive and are therefore not games! (False!)
This makes you look to be a pedant.
^^^
You may want to discuss the design of games as an occupational or professional enterprise in the interest of creating the more addictive diversion or a more intellectually edifying experience. But it doesn't stop games like poker or Candy Land from being games.
Part of the allure of gambling is the emotional high of streaking, even if people do wind up crashing and burning at the end of it all.
Sure, you can go around clicking everything on everything just in case it might do something, but I still love me a good adventure game where I have time to think and figure things out in my own time. I'd say TWD is a new sub-genre of adventure games, rather than the one and only new way of doing them.
Dating is called "The dating game" yet it is understood to have a different meaning than the word being applied to sports. Again you're missing the point which is that the definition of game used in regard to "game design" is different from that used in regard to "gaming the system". That doesn't mean that there cannot be commonalities but they have different meanings.
The context in which you roll the dice makes all of the difference. Rolling dice for Craps is different than rolling dice in D&D, Closterphobia, or Jagged Alliance. Just because a game includes elements of chance does not make it a game of chance.
Poker is a game of skill with an element of chance, Candy Land is purely a game of chance which runs itself by having someone or something roll dice and move pieces. Humans aren't ultimately required to have an optimal game of Candy Land, they are in Poker.
That is the allure of any non-skilled based gambling, there really isn't any other allure.
Keep in mind that none of this means that there aren't things to be learned or borrowed from non-games, elements of books and movies have been incorporated into games just as elements of VNs have been (many TRPGs).
My ultimate point is that the "purity" of the game doesn't exclude games of chance from being games. The "optimal" game isn't even always the desired outcome. Simply that there is a desired outcome, even if it's not desired very fiercely, makes it a game.
Now you can split hairs over whether Walking Dead is more cinema or game. But I see no reason to decide that it's not *really* a game except to be elitist about it.
The whole debate is pointlessly semantical. You can't make the case that The Walking Dead requires no design because suddenly you decided to put it under "movies" or "interactive novel" category and that it is therefore unworthy of the so-called "game designer."
Lets talk specifically about Candyland. Candyland is a Game. However, who is our target audience for this game, and why does it appeal to them?
Lets go ahead and say that our target audience are two year olds. I think this is a relatively safe assumption to make. Now, WHY does this game appeal to that specific audience? Because it is, indeed, challenging for them.
The children for which Candyland is made are still developing the ability to understand and remember basic rules and instructions. If you have ever played with one, Each time a 2 year old lifts up a card, sees a red square, and correctly determines where they need to move their game piece, they feel a small victory inside. they feel like they won! they made the right choice, based on the information that was given them. If they make the wrong choice, the adult playing with them needs to help them understand what to do.
In this sense, you may begin to argue that Candyland is more of a test of physical and mental ability, rather than being a game. But isn't that what all games are? I doubt that anybody here would argue that Starcraft 2 is not a game, but as I play Starcraft 2, All i do is make choices, and see how quickly i can react to them. My success at Starcraft two is determined by my ability do properly execute what is required of me. The success of a child playing candyland is determined by their ability to execute what is required of them. now, the skill ceiling between the two games is dramatically different, but that is because their target audience is different.
Another great example is a simple game of Catch. We can all agree that Baseball is a game, there are definite choices that need to be made. SHould the man rounding second base keep going on to third, or should he stop at second? choices like that make or break the game of baseball. Very similar choices make or break the game of Catch. How hard should I throw it in order for the other person to catch it? when should I let go of the ball to make sure that it travels at the correct arch? These are all choices. These choices make it a game. If you make the wrong choice, your ball will not get where it needs to go.
Your next argument might be: Well, catch doesn't count, because you can't "win" catch. it just ends. Well, I liken it to the Campaign portion of Starcraft 2. In catch, if i make a poor choice, My ball misses the target, and I have to try again. In the Starcraft 2 campaign, if I make a wrong choice, I lose, and I have to try the mission again. At some arbitrary point after playing catch for a while, the game ends. there is no real reason why the game has to end there. it very well could keep going, but one person playing the game has decided that it is time for the game to end. If both parties decide, they can come back and play more later. In Starcraft 2's campaign, it will eventually, and quite arbitrarily, end. it doesn't HAVE to end there, but either the Player decided to stop playing, or the Developer decided to only put 20 levels. that doesnt mean the there couldn't have been 21. 20 is quite the arbitrary number. but, after making enough correct choices to complete 20 missions, the game just ends. Do you call that winning? sure, why not? what else do you call it? Well, then, I also agree that fulfilling whatever arbitrary requirements you decide to attach to the game of catch before calling ti quits also qualifies as "Winning."
Do you see, all games are about choices, some are just harder than others. Just because a game is very easy to you, an adult, doesn't make it any less of a game.
I am reminded of this when I am invited to go and play Frisbee. I am absolutely terrible at Frisbee. Horrible. I find myself constantly trying to refine my strategy of how to throw that blasted disk. Should I let go early? Late? I think that throwing it too hard actually throws my aim off, so why don't I try to throw it softer, but more on target, and then maybe I can get some more hang time and it will actually go as far as I want it to this time! etc... and I am a full grown man.
Sounds like a game to me.
Creating a straw man by falsely claiming someone else was using a straw man didn't work so it's on to ad hominem?
Now you're just pissing me off. That is exactly the question you posed. You are describing the "benefit" of the definition in terms of its relevance to game design.
Remember this?
Take responsibility for the things you actually say.
If the context of the discussion is the EC episode, then it's perfectly in context.
If it isn't, and we're just talking about the gaming industry making games, it's still appropriate because it still requires roughly the same skills, operates under the same constraints and is marketed to the same audience. Aside from fact that I've already explained that it is actually a game.
You can't just insist on me feeding you a succinct dictionary definition because frankly, that's not what you're really interested in.
Maybe Kojima should have done MGS as an adventure game instead of a third-person shooter with 8,000 hours of cutscenes. Then he could spin his overly-complex yarns in a way that doesn't break up gameplay, or vice versa.
But that's a subject for another time.
Titan declared that certain games were not games using an arbitrary definition of his own creation, and when confronted with not less than three dictionary definitions of "game" that defied his own decided instead to attack the definition of the word "play". That's a straw man, pure and simple.
C&L, CL, Yahtzee, even the lottery are games, both by definition and in spirit. Even if you ignore the dictionary definitions of BOTH words and instead apply social convention you are still wrong. These are games both technically and according to common vernacular. Twenty is quite right when he observes the only reasonable assumption is that your denial of both social and academic convention can only be ascribed to some kind of bizarre snobbery on your part.
In fact, your contention that what makes these non-games is a lack of game design is actually rather vapid and displays a fundamental ignorance of basic game design principles.
What you are condemning as a lack of design, the random nature of the game play, is in fact a game design element in and of itself.
These games are random because they must be in order to work.
For example, let's look at children's games like Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land. What is the function, the nature of the engagement, for these games?
A game is at it's simplest at this level. The target age for these games is such that the players cannot be reasonably expected to think critically. The function of these games is to teach children a limited number of life skills. Counting and colors aside, the three primary skills being taught are how to win, how to lose, and how to follow rules.
The first two lessons, winning and losing, are particularly problematic when dealing with children's games. The possibility of winning a game is the primary engagement factor for young children. You said it yourself, there is little else in the game to engage with.
The problem with this is that it is not reasonable to assume that young children will always necessarily be playing the game against another young child. Older siblings, older friends, even parents will all have a much greater skill level to offer the game than it's target age group, and will often play these games with young children as well.
In this instance, when opposing an adult or older child in an honest game, if the game has elements in it that require problem solving, decision making, or any kind of critical thinking the target players will always lose. The target players will be unable to engage in the game at all, become frustrated, and stop playing all together. The game will be a failure.
By making a game completely random the target group will have an equal chance of winning the game as anyone else regardless of skill level.
So you see, the lack of "game design" that you are citing is in and of itself a necessary game design choice.